One of the most frequently asked questions we get about our full-time travels is how our boys learn while we’re on the road. ?✏️?? Here’s a glimpse into what we call wildschool… our version of homeschool, road school and unschool combined!
5 Different Ways to Homeschool
To ground you in the terms used above, here’s a quick breakdown of what each of these type of schools mean.
Homeschool: Just as it sounds, homeschool is a progressive movement where parents choose to teach their children at home instead of a public or private school setting. Curriculum can vary, but certain requirements may be based on the state the family lives in.
Roadschool: Similar to homeschool, the classroom simply takes shape in many ways as families travel on the road. Many families who embrace this lifestyle incorporate what they are seeing and experiencing into their child’s homeschool curriculum.
Unschool: This method advocates for learner-chosen activities as a primary means for learning. Essentially, the child self-directs what he or she want to learn.
Worldschool: This is very similar to roadschool, with the premise being that kids are traveling internationally with their families. It’s an excellent way to learn about new cultures, languages, food and people.
Wildschool: This is a progressive parenting philosophy which encourages the creativity, curiosity, and joy that children naturally express.
We are hard-wired to evolve with nature. We are nature! Nature connection is a developmental and emotional need for children, keying up biological functions that would otherwise be latent. Wildschooling recognizes and champions the need for ALL children to safely access and reconnect to their wild.
—Nicolette Sowder, 2019
For our family, we’ve found that each of these philosophies bring incredible value to how we teach the boys. Since we are always traveling to new places and exploring the outdoors, it seemed only fitting to acknowledge our teaching method as wildschooling!
If you’re looking to start homeschooling, check out our post on how to get started.
Printable Resources for Homeschoolers
Every day looks a bit different, but most days we center lessons around reading, writing, math and art. At the beginning of the school year, I utilized lots of printable resources from Teachers Pay Teachers, an online resource that provides tons of worksheets and lesson plans by grade level for a small fee — or FREE! While this was a great way to kick off school for the boys, it was fairly time consuming to find what we needed (there’s so much to choose from!) and then print it out. Perfect while we were stationary in an Airbnb, but not ideal once we move our travels solely to the van. Often times I’ll print these out in advance, especially for seasonal and holiday lessons.
Comprehensive (and Cheap!) Workbooks for All Ages
Early into our travels we discovered FlashKids. These are colorful workbooks that offer essential math, reading, and language arts skills in a way that makes learning easy. I found these pretty easily on Amazon, and the boys enjoy powering through the fun lessons. There are books by subject, or you can buy a comprehensive curriculum for the year for less than $15. SCORE! I love that these workbooks include essential math, reading, and language arts skills. We also supplement math with these flash cards. (I should note here that the FlashKids Pre-K workbooks are fairly small. When Harvey was in Pre-K, he would fly through each book in a few weeks, so we added on SchoolZone’s Big Preschool Workbook and Modern Kid Press’ Trace Letters of the Alphabet and Sight Words (On The Go).)
With the aforementioned studies, we average around 1-3 hours of pencil-to-paper schoolwork a day. Granted, our boys are in elementary schools, but our main goal is to spend as much time experiencing our surroundings!
How We’re Raising Readers
Narration has been a very useful tool for complementing what our boys have learned. Encouraging Levi and Harvey to share what they heard, read, or studied in their own words — and also include how they felt or how it compares to something else they know — provides some of our best discussions! We do this a lot during mealtime, reflecting on the day and sharing what we experienced, both together and as individuals. Narration can be oral, drawn, dramatic, or written. With our fam, all forms take place! And now that the boys are both avid readers, we can take turns reading to each other. To help with reading, we utilized these flash cards with Harvey to strengthen his skills and boost his confidence. These books are also great for early readers!
Libraries also offer a wealth of knowledge and learning activities. From scheduled storytime, to simply settling in to read as many books as we can in an afternoon, heading to the local library has been a staple on Our Great Big Adventure! In our downtime, the kids and I have also taken to reading chapter books. We aim for a chapter a day, and discuss the story together afterwards. My hope is that reading together ignites a fire in our kids to continue reading long after the lessons are complete.
Options for Online Learning
During our first year, we also utilized a subscription to Time4Learning.com, where all subjects can be covered via the computer. The boys went nuts for this style of learning, because each lesson comes with fun animation. I highly recommend this program for Pre-K kiddos, or even as after-school/skill-building for older kids. We signed up after receiving a promo deal via email, and paid $29.66/month. Ultimately, we transitioned away from this service only because having solid WiFi on the road can be challenging.
Outschool.com is another great way to pick up extracurricular lessons. This platform offers over 100,000 topics! Our boys loved being in a “live” class with other kids via Zoom. There are classes for every age, and the cost is as low as $15/class.
One of our favorite new additions is Homeschool Spanish Academy. For our full review of this program, check out our blog post here!
Lately, the boys have been into Minecraft and Super Mario Bros. Their passion here had led them to find YouTube videos that show how to draw each character through simple steps. While many might say this isn’t schoolwork, for us it is. Levi and Harvey have shown initiative in a subject that they’re passionate about, and are translating that into an artistic skill. We will always encourage both kids to chase what excites them!
Finally, we will also watch documentaries and educational shows that teach our kids more about the world that they live in. These are super easy to find on Netflix and Disney+. The boys get to pick the topic they like, and after the documentary they’ll draw a picture and write a quick report on what they learned.
Wildschool — Our Preferred Way to Learn on the Go
Wherever we are, we immerse ourselves in the area and the history of each place. Visitor centers, state parks, national parks, museums and playgrounds are integral to our studies. This is where we add the “wild” to our schooling! Most of these places have a website, where I can do some quick homework of my own to better inform the boys while we’re at each place. If the location has a visitors center, we’ll stop in to talk with the docent or ranger before we set out to explore. Even on our hikes there is a lot that we can learn, from the wildlife, flora and fauna, to the history behind the trail name. We build on a lot of these outdoor adventures by picking up postcards to send to family and friends. It’s a quick and easy way for the boys to practice their handwriting, while also sharing their favorite parts of their exploration.
“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach of us more than we can ever learn from books.”
—John Lubbock
In Summary
Some days are easy peasy, while others can be challenging. No two days look the same! We’re all learning as we go, and fine-tuning along the way. One thing we know for sure… these two kiddos are growing in immeasurable ways, creating lifelong memories. And most of those lessons stem for simply being outdoors, in tune in observation of the world around them. ?
For even more ideas and tips, check out this post!
Do you have any questions for us about wildschooling? We’re an open book! ?
